


It Comes with the Occupation

by Alexa_Piper



Series: The Notebook - Unrelated Danny Phantom Oneshots from 2013 to 2019 [9]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Comedy, F/M, I remember how much fun I had writing this, Identity Reveal, backdated fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27210472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexa_Piper/pseuds/Alexa_Piper
Summary: Danny finds himself set up for what will be a truly spectacular dinner.
Relationships: Danny Fenton/Star
Series: The Notebook - Unrelated Danny Phantom Oneshots from 2013 to 2019 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986457
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	It Comes with the Occupation

The table was set with their best dishes and cutlery, and six places instead of five. The floor had been freshly vacuumed and mopped with the dog exiled to the backyard, the kitchen bench was miraculously clear, and somebody had even lit scented candles to drown out the scent of smoke from an earlier cooking mishap. The house was eerily quiet for one with a teenager and two children under ten, swollen with anticipation like a water balloon filled almost to bursting; one small nudge, and all that built-up tension would come pouring forth.

Lance straightened his tie absently before glaring at his two younger children. The twins grinned from their spot where the stairs twisted before returning to earnest whispers. Eight years old with strawberry blonde hair and grass-stained knees, the girls giggled behind their hands and kicked their legs out in the open air beneath the banister. After all, the last time anything like this took place was eighteen months ago; it didn't end well, with Dash Baxter exiled from their property with his lovely suit covered in lasagne and his lovely mouth spewing profanities.

This boy had better be an improvement on the last.

Lance could only hope that the girls' pretty dresses stayed in one piece for the duration of the evening. After all, the Thunder home was far more sophisticated than that Fenton madhouse down the street, and if anything was to be said about Lance Thunder, it was that he was determined to live his life worthy of a far better job than the one he had. If he didn't aim high, the reporter feared that he'd be stuck in a dead-end ghost chasing job for the rest of his career.

He never would have imagined it – his daughter, one of the town's most beautiful and popular high school juniors, dating a Fenton. Still, what better person to protect Lance's little princess in a haunted town than the son of ghost hunters? Danny might even be able to give the weather-ghost-man tips on how to better protect himself during those often-disastrous ghost reports. Lance was going to make a good impression on this boy, and if Daniel was as great a kid as Star said he was, then hopefully the next generation of Fentons weren't a lost cause.

A sharp ring broke the silence, with the twins racing upstairs at the sound of the doorbell. One tripped over the hem of her dress in the rush, her father wincing at the sound of tearing fabric.

Straightening his back until several vertebrae clicked, Lance pulled the front door wide open with a gracious smile.

The boy on the doorstep held out a hand to shake. "Hi, Mr Thunder, I'm Danny Fenton. It's great to finally meet you!"

A greeting died on Lance's lips, and he shook the teen's hand numbly – he knew this kid.

Black hair and blue eyes told him otherwise, but the reporter saw through it in an instant; he had been in too many ghost fights to ever forget this boy's face. A nose that had been broken so many times that it could no longer be classified as any particular shape, framed by a mouth quicker to smile than scowl and eyes that burned. The lanky frame could not be obscured beneath his dinner suit, nor that chunk missing from his left ear hidden by combed black bangs.

A simple change in colour wasn't enough to disguise the young man to whom Lance owed his life more times than could be counted.

Danny fidgeted under the adult's stare. "Um, are you gunna give me my hand back?" he asked in that same joking tone commonly used against the armoured spectre with a flaming Mohawk.

Lance withdrew from the prolonged handshake, forcing a chuckle from his throat. "Hi, Danny. Sorry about that, you just remind me of someone."

A brilliant smile set beneath eyes that really should have been glowing green. "I don't think we've met before," the Fenton boy insisted, fiddling with the cuff of a sleeve.

The adult raised an eyebrow before moving aside to let the boy into his home. As Danny passed him, the man couldn't resist speaking in a voice low enough for only the two of them to hear. "Hello, Phantom."

Lance Thunder would forever swear that he had never seen a teenager look so utterly terrified in his life.


End file.
